DOCUMENT RESUME ED 075 849 24 CS 200 507 TITLE [Poetry: Literature Curriculum, Grades Fivo and Six; Teacher's Guide.] INSTITUTION Oregon Univ., Eugene. Oregon Elementary English Project. SPONS AGENCY Office of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C. Bureau of Research. BUREAU NO BR-8-0143 PUB DATE 71 CONTRACT OEC-0-8-080143-3701 e NOTE 268p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$9.87 DESCRIPTORS Curriculum Guides; Diction; Elementary Education; t Figurative Language; *Grade 5; *Grade 6; Imagery; Irony; *Literary Analysi; Literary Styles; *Literatur3; Metaphors; *Poetry; Symbols (Literary); Versification IDENTIFIERS *Oregon 5%ementary English Project ABSTRACT This curriculum guide is intended to introduce fifth and sixth grade children to the study of poetry. Separate units include discussion of, suggested activities for, and questions about (1) metrics and scansion;(2) rhyme scheme and stanza;(3) diction, denotation and connotation, and onomatopoeia; (4) rhyme (end rhyme, masculine and feminine rhyme, internal rhyme, off- rhyme) ; (5) hyperbole; (6) symbolism;(7) point of view;(8) idea patterns; (9) metaphor I;(10) metaphor II, extended metaphor, arld review; (11) speakers in poems; (12)simile;(13) allusion;(14) imagery; (15) dramatic situation; and(16) the whole poem. (See related documents CS 200 500-506, and CS 200 508.) (DI) 9 9 a FILMED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY ... U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO DUCE() EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM The Whole Poem THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION OM Literature V-VI Teacher INATINC IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPIN IONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDU CYN CATION POSITION OR POLICY .-- CO t-r% lam.. CZ) CM In the lessons preceding this one, your class has concentratedon LAJ various poetic techniques, isolating themmore or less from the total fabric of the poem for the purposes of examination and identification. Sucha process is necessary, but it is a rather sterile exercise if it stops there. For the goal of all this investigation has been not the ability to identify poetic devices, but to enjoy more fully the experience of readinga poem. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to "put back" all the isolated elements into the whole poem. To borrow a useful distinction made by the poet:-critic John Ciardi, we want our students to be able to answer not only the question, "What does this poem mean?" but also the question, "How does thispoem mean?" Answering the first question only leads to bad paraphrase and moral- abstracting. Answering the first question in terms of the second,on the other hand, leads to close and intelligent reading, to appreciation of the internal dynamics of the poem, and consequently toa far more sensitive perception of the poem's 'meaning. " For in poetry the way something is said is part of what is being said. In discussing the poems in this chapter with your students, you will want to make several very important points, which have been moreor less implicit throughout the previous lessons. The first is that not all the poetic devices studied operate in all poems. In other words, to criticizea poem for, say, a lack of delicate imagery is futile, if the poem is trying to do something else. The key to the interpretation ofone poem may not work at all for the next: the force of the first may reside in a powerful metaphor, while the force of the second may reside in its suggestive implications. It follows from this that in reading the whole poem it is important to pay attention to its intent. A futility comparable to the one mentioned above would be to criticize a limerick, say, for lacking high seriousnessor a significant theme. A third point you will want to make is that there isno poetic device to be found in a good poem that cannot also be found in a badone, just as there is no poetic device that cannot also be found inour everyday speech. Technique alone does not make a good poem, any more than the most pro- found truth put into verse makes a goodpoem. The happy union of form and t content, in terms of the poem's performance of its intentions, makes a q good poem. o Another idea you may wish to bring in is what is called in critical jargon oil the "affective fallacy. " This is just a fancy term for the undiscriminating v) subjective response: "I like it so it must be good." If this series of lessons C) has had any effect, it should have encouraged the beginnings of objectivity in your students' response. As we said in our introduction to this curriculum, one of the characteristics that distinguishes man from beast Oregon Elementa'ry English Project Univ. of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 1971 The Whole Poem -2- Literature V-VI Teacher is his ability to intellectualize, to objectify.Just as the happy union of form and content produces the good poem, so does the happy union of the emotion- al and intellectual response produce the good reader.If your students can begin to say, "Yes, I see what this poem is trying to do, but it doesn't grab me, " or "I like this poem because ..., " you can consider that you have achieved some success. With the poems that follow, we have provided the usual brief analysis, but feel it hardly necessary to add suggested questions or activities. The questions are always the same at this stage: Here is a poem; what is it trying to do? How is it trying to do it? How well has it succeeded in its performance? Or, if you prefer to reduce everything to a single question, just ask, "What's going on here?" The answers you get in an intelligently guided discussion will be a rough but fairly reliable index of the success of the program. The Whole Poem Literature V-VI Teacher THE WHOLE POEM - -1 Purpose: To appreciate a poem as the sum and significance of all its components. Selection:----- "The Eagle, " by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (s?,epage 3). Analysis : This poem can serve as well as any to illustrate the point (if it still needs illustration) that poetry need not necessarily moralize, or carry a message, or have any 'practical" purpose.It is sufficient if a poem communicates a vivid impression, or enables us imaginatively to participate in the poet's perceptions. This simple poem of Tennyson's satisfies the requirements we have suggested for a good poem:it is completely successful in accomplishing its intention. America's adoption of the eagle as a national symbol is not an original inspiration. For ages it has symbolized majesty, power, pride, and the composure of confident power. Tennyson portrays the bird in a way that helps us understand why it has always had this symbolic appeal. How does he achieve this? Primarily by taking us to the eagle's world, and describing that world with concentration and intensity. To get your students to see how well this poem performs itself, probably a line-by-line analysis would be best. The first line personifies the eagle ("crooked hands"). Your students may remember having studied the metaphors in this poem in the chapter on metaphor; if so, they will have somethirg to build on this second time around. As an example of diction, ask them to notice "crag, " a more romantic and impressive word in its connotations than, say, "cliff" or "rock. " If some of them claim that the alliteration on the hard "c" sounds in the line intensifies its meaning, good for them. The second line suggests the remoteness of the eagles's world, not only in the phrase 'lonely lands, " but also in the quietly suggestive hyperbole of "close to the sun. " This idea is reinforced in the third line in which the eagle's "world" is the sky, in which there is only himselfg the sun, and the "azure world. " And here, in this world, "he stands, ' powerful, remote, dominant. The second stanza provides balance and a new direction, illustrating the principle of idea patterns. This is most apparent is the final two words, "he falls, " which contrabt with "he stands" in thesame position in stanza one. With this shift in action, we also get a shift in direction. The first stanza has placed the eagle in his world; the second describes his relation to ours--the surface of the planet. The first line directs our attention downward to the "wrinkled " sea, a particularly vivid image.If any of your students have ever observed the ocean from a high cliff, or an airplane, they will reconize the precision of the visual image. And the The Whole Poem -2- Literature V-VI Teacher sea "crawls" beneath the eagle. The sea, generally a symbol of surging power, here crawls impotently below the majesty of the bird: he dominates our world as well as his own. ! In the second line, the motintaiti "walls" is practically.a -dead metaphor, but the original force of the metaphor compares the cliffs of a mountain to the walls of a castle. The poem comes to a satisfactory conclusion by describing the eagle' s relation to earth: a simile likening him to a bolt of lightning. You will surely not want to go into this much detail with your class, but some such process of laying it all out and then putting it all back into the poem will help them see how the devices Tennyson uses function together to provide us, not with a moral, but with an intense experience. "What's going on here?" A great deal.